PCSing there this summer. What am I in for? Nice post? Shitty post? Surrounding areas? Stuff to do?

Spent some time there. 2002-2005. It's a little remote from big city stuff. Two hours to Kansas City.

There are two major options to live if you're not on post. Junction City on one side, Manhattan on the other. Try to get a place in Manhattan, KS (college town)... and distance away from the college will tell you how much traffic frustration you'll encounter on game days. Junction City mostly sucks ass, typical dirty Army town. Unless I wanted to go to a Chinese restaurant for lunch or visit one of my troops - I never went to JC. There are other smaller outlying towns that would be worth investigating.

Most of the tactical units are "on the hill" on Fort Riley. They blocked off traffic before PT. If you were one minute late, you parked your car on the side of the road and walked.

Nice craft shop with excellent staff and great equipment. The brigades weren't on the patch chart any more than any other units, it seemed. I've heard that the 1ID flag is back at Riley - but that happened after I left. I'm sure that's changed the post to some degree.

If you're just gonna get an apartment, I can give you some contact info of nice 1/2 bedroom apts in Manhattan. Good management, easy to deal with.

Cold and windy in the winter.

Might want to suck start the nearest firearm and save yourself the pain and suffering.



In all seriousness...The winters are pretty fucking cold, they are buried under a few feet of snow right now. The summers are kinda hot but still pretty nice. You got a college town(manhattan) 30 minutes away that has a decent relationship with the post. Not to bad to goto over the weekends. Manhattan cops will ride your ass no matter who is at fault. Manhattans not bad, Junction city is a POS, the rest of the area varies from trailer trash to just good ole country folks. If your outdoorsy then there is plenty to do during the summer. Hunting and fishing is also popular. 1st Infantry Division however... Id rather sever my own testicles with a rusty spoon than suffer that place again.

Hope you can sing too

Awesome.

http://www.1id.army.mil/bigredone/divisionsong.aspx

http://www.1id.army.mil/bigredone/divisionsong.aspx

FUCK YOU!!!! DONT EVER SEND ME THAT FILTH!!!!!!!

I was in Aviation, so I was down at the airfield, but it all sucked pretty bad. I was assigned there in the mid-70's following Vietnam and I was a career aviator until my hitch at Riley and that did me in. I don't know what your MOS is, but the Big Red One is Mechanized Infantry and spends a large portion of it's time in the field training. I had a neighbor at the apartment complex where I lived that had been married 9-months since arriving at Riley and only had been able to spend two weekends with his wife during his time there. They were both miserably unhappy.

Like most have said, stay out of Junction City and try to live off post in Manhattan. Kansas State University is there and it's a pretty good school. It's about 20-30 minutes commute away from post. There's several big lakes around Riley, so fishing/boating is big. Hunting is also pretty good around there.

I was born & raised in Kansas City and being two hours, or so, from home was pretty good, but sometimes it seemed I was on the other side of the earth. One of the old sayings around there is that when Col. Custer rode out of Riley to his fate at the Little Big Horn he said, "don't change anything 'til I get back"..........and they haven't.

Good luck to you, I hope your experience at Riley will be better than most.

The other joke is, when GEN Custer was getting briefed by his Indian Scout, Mitch Bouyer, Mitch said to Custer, "General Custer, I have good news and bad news."
Custer replied, "Whats the bad news?"
Bouyer said, "General Custer, I've just recon'ed the biggest pony herd I've ever seen, and probably the biggest pony herd in North America. There are more hostiles over that hill than we have bullets. We're likely all going to die."
This bad news sinks in for second, with Custer's staff downtrodden.

Custer than says, "Shit, Mitch, whats the good news?"
Bouyer saids, "At least we're not riding back to Riley."

Only a small point, but Custer's "General " rank was brevetted and he was reverted back to the rank of Lt. Colonel after the Civil War.

From his biography:

"Custer decided to accept the lieutenant-colonelcy of the 7th cavalry, his ap­pointment dating from 28 July, 1866. He joined his regiment at Fort Riley, Kansas, in November, 1866, and served on the plains until 1871."

Sorry for the thread drift OP.

Name one spot on the Continental United States - excluding the Left Coast - that isn't cold and windy right now.

Wow...if it sucks worse than Alaska...

Seriously though, why does it seem that ALL of the closest cities to Army posts suck? Fayetteville, just outside of Bragg sucked...Clarksville, just outside of Ft. Campbell is not too bad, but most of 41-A sucks.

I have heard the horror stories about Riley...that is one place that I never, ever, want to be stationed at.

ETA- I would rather go back to Ft. Bragg than go to Riley, and if you have run across any of my other posts about Bragg, you know how I feel about THAT place!

Post before First Post nailed it...

Some of you people sound like little girls. It isn't that cold here. Maybe if you grew up in the south, and if you did you will like it here in summer as the humidity isn't bad.
You have to get off the beaten path. The boring areas are the interstates. No shit, wonder why. I think KSU and Manhattan have a good relationship with the post. When you go out and get drunk, act like an asshole and think you are some gang of ultimate fighters in a bar, then you probably will get into trouble.
Are you that type of GI? Or are you the type that brings your fat army wife and dirty kids to the Manhattan Wal Mart to shop on pay days? Or maybe you are a normal person who won't buy into stereotypes. I've met many a soldier that liked the area and stayed when they got out. Good luck.

I miss fort riley. As crazy as that might sound, I really miss that place. After riley, I moved back to Oregon, I kick myself on a regular basis for coming back here. If I thought I could find a job there, i'd move back right now.

:-\

my brother was stationed there and he now lives in the town of Riley. He is running for mayor in a couple of months.

That's my understanding as well.

I know things have changed since then, but it's really hard for me to honor a guy whose super ego, failure to follow the military doctrine of the day and reckless behavior got himself, several members of his family and hundreds of the men serving under him killed while trying to perpetuate an act of genocide on the Native American people.

Sorry OP, rant off